Smartphones Can Aid People with Schizophrenia

Published on: 15th Mar 2012

Note -- this news article is more than a year old.

Psychiatry is employing smartphone technology as an innovative tool in the assessment and treatment of schizophrenia and other serious mental illness. Prominent in this endeavor is Dror Ben Zeev an assistant professor of psychiatry at Dartmouth Medical School and director of the Thresholds Dartmouth Research Center in Chicago.

Ben-Zeev and his colleagues evaluated a range of approaches, including the
use of mobile phones to gather information about patients' symptoms, moods, and
medication use. The phones could then be used to deliver real-time, real-world
interventions, such as prompts to take medication or engage in healthy behaviors
like diet, exercise, or stress-reducing activities.

"We are using the technology that is already in your pocket to create a
completely new medium for psychotherapeutic intervention," says Ben-Zeev.
"You can have therapy with you and accessible to you whenever and wherever
you have the need, potentially anywhere in the world."

As guest editor for a special issue of the Schizophrenia Bulletin, Ben-Zeev
presents a set of four papers coauthored by a series of international
colleagues. The papers are geared toward the increasing numbers of researchers
who are leveraging smartphones and cellphones to provide mental health services.
The articles are now available online with print publication set for spring
2012.

Ben-Zeev acknowledges that some mental-health practitioners may doubt the
ability of the mentally ill to make productive use of this technology. To
counter this perception, Ben-Zeev and his associates recently conducted a survey
of 1,600 Chicago individuals under treatment for serious mental illnesses, such
as schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and bipolar disorder.

"We showed that 70 percent of the people had cellphones and used them
for calling, texting, and for accessing the Internet," he remarks.
"It's not quite up to the 94 percent of people in the U.S. overall but I
think that these results are going to be very surprising to many who expect much
less from people with serious mental illness."

The goal of the special issue papers, according to Ben-Zeev, is to stimulate
discussion of potential opportunities where mobile technologies can enhance the
study of psychotic illnesses and to encourage researchers and clinicians to be
creative in employing these technologies.

The first of the four papers is a general review by international experts
that includes concrete guidelines and practical suggestions for future studies.
Editor Ben-Zeev also alludes to "expert insights and shared collective
experiences [that] will undoubtedly be useful to investigators who are
unfamiliar with mobile technology study design, hardware and software
requirements, and statistical approaches necessary to successfully analyze the
rich data that are characteristic of these paradigms."

The remaining three papers in the series are empirical studies that
demonstrate the utility of technology in psychiatry, each highlighting the use
of three successive generations of technology. The first study report begins
with preprogrammed wristwatches that signal people to respond to paper
questionnaires. The second had people using personal digital assistants (PDAs)
to complete on-screen questionnaires periodically when prompted, and the last
employed cellphones that delivered text messages requiring self-monitoring
responses.

In addition to the call to action implicit in the special issue papers, Ben-Zeev
and his Chicago coworkers are putting "boots on the ground," as he
says. He is partnering with community agencies and working with psychiatric
rehabilitation centers and people in treatment. As a result, his research is
simultaneously providing a clinical service.

"This is not your typical model," states Ben-Zeev. "Usually
the research is conducted in an academic medical center, and then there is a
transition back to real settings which may take a really long time. We are
bypassing that by developing the paradigm here to begin with, getting feedback
from both providers and consumers. I think that's the strength of what we are
doing."

All rights reserved. Reproduction of this website,in whole or in part, in any form or medium without express written permission from cellular-news is prohibited. Your use of this website is subject to legal terms - Site Map.